The Tribune-Review sports staff is conducting a daily countdown of the best players in Pittsburgh pro and college sports history to wear each jersey number.
No. 21: Roberto Clemente
The biggest player to use the number 21 in the history of the game in Pittsburgh does not want to be featured. The honor is reserved for Roberto Clemente, the right-fielder of the Hall of Fame whose jersey was eliminated through the Pirates, and many deserve to be retired through MLB, along with Jackie Robinson’s 42.
Clement has left a legacy not only for his baseball prowess in a career full of 3,000 hits, two World Series championships, 15 All-Star appearances and a dozen consecutive gold gloves, but the humanitarian effort that his life carries is remembered.
It’s a tragic bond Clement shares with two Pittsburgh greats who used number 21, Pirates Hall of Fame member Arky Vaughan and Penguins’ Michel Briere.
Briere the Penguins was the first All-Star, scoring 44 points (12 purposes, 32 assists) in 76 games as a rookie half in 1969-70. He scored the first overtime purpose in the team’s history, a winner opposed to the Oakland Seals to achieve the team’s first playoff victory, and three of his 8 purposes in 10 playoff games were winners. He died on April 13, 1971, almost a year after suffering a head injury in a car accident. Her penguins got off her shirt on January 5, 2001 and she’s the only one who hung up with Mario Lemieux from the rafters of ppG Paints Arena.
Vaughan was a nine-time All-Star who had one of the greatest seasons by a shortstop in baseball history in 1935, when he batted .385, had a .491 on-base percentage and 1.098 OPS — all team records — and hit 19 home runs and had 99 RBIs. Vaughan starred for the Pirates from 1932-41, when he was traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Vaughan retired to a ranch in Eagleville, Calif., where he drowned in 1952 at age 40 when his boat capsized while fishing.
Clemente, a local from Carolina, Puerto Rico, signed with the Dodgers, but learned through the Pirates while hiding with the Montreal Royals in an effort to hide him from the draft.
Clement made his main league deyet on April 17, 1955, dressed at No. 13. (The Pirates’ central defender, Earl Smith, used No. 21, but played only five games.) Although Vaughan wears the number in front of him, the number 21 temporarily identifiable with Clement, who proclaimed: “When I put on my uniform, I feel like I’m the proudest guy in the world.
It didn’t take long before he would shoot to stardom. On July 26, 1956, Clemente hit the only documented inside-the-park, walk-off grand slam in modern baseball history in a 9-8 win over the Chicago Cubs at Forbes Field. Clemente became as feared for his rocket right arm, which prevented runners from trying to take third base on hits to right field, as he did for the speed of both his swing and his legs.
Clement won the National League batting titles in 1961 (.351), ’64 (.339), ’65 (.329) and ’67 (.357). Clemente was named National League Most Valuable Player in 1966, when he cut 0.317/.360/.536 with 29 home races and 119 RBIs in 154 games. Sport magazine named him “the best baseball player of today” in 1967, after connecting 23 home races and 110 RBIs.
“I want to be remembered,” Clemente said, “as a ballplayer who gave all he had to give.”
Clement did his thing for the Pirates in the playoffs. He averaged 0.318 in his career in 26 postseason games, hitting the New York Yankees safely in the seven 1960 World Series Games and hitting Array414 (12 of 29) and hitting a solo house in the game 2-1. 7 over the Baltimore Orioles in 1971 to win the Most Valuable Player award.
Clemente recorded his 3,000th hit, a double off Jon Matlack of the New York Mets on Sept. 30, 1972 at Three Rivers Stadium, tipping his cap to Pirates fans who came to adore him.
On New Year’s Eve 1972, eight days after an earthquake struck Managua, Nicaragua, where he had trained youth baseball, Clement accompanied a fourth relay flight with relief packages after learning that the first three had been hijacked by corrupt officials. Clemente died at the age of 38 when the Douglas DC-7 aircraft with 4,200 pounds of cargo crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Isla Verde, Puerto Rico.
The five-year retirement rule was lifted for Clement, who got 393 votes out of 420 (92.7%) and was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the first Latin American player to receive the award. MLB renamed its Commissioner’s Award for its commitment to the network in honor of Clement.
Clement’s legacy is still alive, as is the message of his mission: “If you have the chance to accomplish something that will make things greater for the other people who stick to you, and you don’t, wasting time on this earth.”
Check out the entire ’Burgh’s Best to Wear It series here.
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